Chapter 199: Only meetings, nothing else
We walked across the long bridge of rafts with big strides, and then changed to horses at the dock.

Shaking the reins, Horn, whose horsemanship was not bad, led Busak, Jeshka and his party towards the small town on Autumn Dusk Island.

According to the Child Army scouts who explored the entire island, the entire Qiumu Island is an oval island running from north to south, narrow on the sides and wide in the middle.

It is about 20 kilometers from south to north and about 10 kilometers from east to west at its widest point, but the total area does not exceed 110 square kilometers.

According to the child soldier, to the north of the island, just below the long bridge, there is actually a land bridge formed by solid rocks and soil.

As for why the people of the El Empire did not walk directly on the land bridge but instead built a high bridge on the land bridge, it might be because the Ruoan Dam had not been built at that time and the lake water would surge every year.

When the Ruoan Dam was built, the water level would no longer rise, but the Blackbone Swamp's estuary was blocked by earthquakes and landslides, making it useless.

From the dock to the town, when Horn's horse hooves passed by, they would always attract waves and greetings from the refugees.

"Good afternoon, Your Majesty."

"good afternoon!"

"Good afternoon, Saint Sun."

"Good afternoon, keep an eye on the kids and don't fall behind."

Waving to the refugees, Horn pulled the reins and rode his horse towards the nameless town.

When he reached the other side of the river of the nameless town, the cold rain of early winter finally stopped.

In just one morning, nearly a thousand refugees have arrived on the island. As the floating bridge gradually stabilizes, more refugees will arrive on the island.

For these first refugees who arrived on the island, Horn gave them the task of clearing out a habitable area in the ruins and collecting usable building materials.

Horn has not had the chance to enter this town, but through Shilov's mechanical theater, he has already had a general understanding of the entire town.

Different from the traditional sense, this town ruin is a ruin within a ruin, a town within a ruin.

On its outermost edge, in the wild and overgrown areas, there are still a large number of ruins from the ancient Aiel Empire, as well as a small number of villas and churches.

A little closer, the buildings of the beastmen and the buildings of the El people complement each other.

However, the buildings of the beastmen are mostly angular and relatively rough, while the pillars and walls of the Aiel are softer, filled with herringbone patterns and water-wave-like carvings.

A little closer, near the small river in front of the Mechanical Palace, is the real craftsman town, built by craftsmen of the Holy El Empire in later generations, but from the shrines and cross windows, it is known that it must have been made by modern craftsmen.

The Mechanical Palace is located on a mound at the north end of the town. Facing south, it has a clear view of the entire town.

Leading the horse up the slope, Horn stood under the headless rooster and handed the reins to the guard guarding the gate.

"Is everyone here?" Walking to the locker room in the side hall, Horn took off his cloak that was soaked by the rain.

Du Valon's voice was calm and almost indifferent: "Everyone is here. This is the first imperial meeting since arriving on the island. They all arrived early, and some even waited since early morning."

Picking up a warm and comfortable leather robe from the hook, Horn put his arm into the sleeves: "Where's Shilov? Is she up?"

"Lady Shirof hasn't gotten up yet."

"You said it's easy to change your schedule." Horn scolded with a smile, "Then forget about her, let's go to the meeting first."

When Horn said he was going to a meeting, he really meant it and didn't do much else.

Since the main hall is where Shilov sleeps every day, and there are important scientific research instruments there, Horn and his group are all rough people, and it will be a disaster if they break it.

Walking to an empty room on the second floor of the side hall, the original long table with one leg missing was placed in the middle of the room.

I don’t know who brought the dried dog head specimen from the Stag Room of the Gulag Pope’s Palace and hung it directly on the wall.

This gave the originally solemn conference hall a glimpse of fighting.

It seemed as if it was not long ago when Townley and Madeleine had a fight on the table and their faces were bruised and swollen...

No, that happened just last month, not long ago indeed.

I just hope that in the future, no one in this conference room will pay tribute to the legendary Lao Tang.

Taking a deep breath, Horn stepped into the conference room, and the important officials of the Papal State who were gathered around the long table stood up to greet him.

Among them are Madeleine, Chilvis, Jeshka and others, as well as several veterans such as Chap, Thomas, and the thief locksmith Hemodin.

"Okay, everyone, take a seat. Do you know why I called you all here?"

"what?"

Looking at the innocent eyes of this group of people, Horn knew that they had not even read the meeting notice that he had asked them to circulate in turn.

There were only a few hundred words. Horn even assigned the child soldiers to be readers to the illiterate people, but they were not prepared at all.

Looking at the staggering bishops and elders, they were in high spirits, but not at all serious. Some of them used their boogers to wipe the vase, and some took off their shoes and put them on the table. This was not a high-level meeting of a faction, it was just a bunch of old men at the village entrance talking nonsense.

The people present were either farmers or beggars. It was extremely difficult to expect them to develop good habits and be able to handle affairs normally.

But the group of people before us are already heroes among the trustworthy refugees.

"Where is my previous meeting notice?"

Looking at the piece of white paper with a large yellow stain on it in his hand, Horn turned his head numbly and looked at Madeleine.

Madeleine scratched her head. "There were too many words. I fell asleep."

Putting down the white paper in his hand, Horn looked at them with a cold voice: "If you haven't seen it, let me tell you.

Our purpose now is to make arrangements and plans for a series of military, administrative and economic tasks for the entire Salvation Army in the coming period.

I wanted to discuss this with you, but now I don’t think it’s necessary.”

Those senior executives who were either lying or leaning pulled their feet back into their chairs in embarrassment.

"Well, let's get started." Horn took out a small notebook from his clothes, "We have six main things to do, let's talk about them one by one.

First thing, food.

The goal is to control the entire salted fish production process and collect enough meat before the snow falls. The problem we face is that there is not enough salt, and the reason for not having enough salt is because there is not enough brine.

So we need to use Starcast Gears to make a pump to meet the need for quick salt storage.

The second thing is to be served.

Winter is coming soon, and our believers will need a lot of bedding to get through the winter. The cloth we brought is not enough for everyone, so we need to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, and make careful overall plans.

The third thing is residence.

The issue of fabric was mentioned earlier, which brings us to the issue of building a warm residence. The town in front of the Mechanical Palace is a good example, and there are a lot of usable building materials, enough for us.

However, we still need to build a mortar workshop to make adhesives and allocate a few gears as cranes to build the house.

The fourth thing is ideological education.

We will retrain the officers, corps commanders and responsible personnel of all levels in our Salvation Army, and quickly train a group of military chaplains and basic administrative personnel.

The fifth thing is military reorganization.

The Salvation Army established an organization larger than a legion, with a total of 4,000 people, which was called a battle group.

During this period we have to select suitable soldiers to join the regiment, and we also need to compile a drill manual. The training location of the regiment is an abandoned Aiel military camp in the south of the island.

The sixth thing is weapons and equipment.

These include the construction of mountain copper workshops, improvements in mountain copper manufacturing, improvements to clockwork guns, and the standardization of weapons workshops.

There are some small things here and there, I will talk about them when they happen, I won’t report them one by one.”

Looking at the many bishops and elders whose heads kept shaking, as if the heads did not belong to them, Horn did not continue to correct the trend.

He snapped his fingers at Busak beside him, and Busak immediately handed a stack of white paper to Horn.

You know, Busak is also semi-illiterate, but he has taught himself very hard all the way, and his current level is much higher than those senior executives present here.

Horn handed out the stack of white papers one by one and crossed them on the table: "This is my three-day schedule. I will visit you within three days and discuss these issues in detail.

From now on, we will hold a regular imperial meeting every ten days to report on the past ten days’ work and make plans for the next ten days. This rule will be officially implemented from next month.”

Horn stood up and looked around the entire Bucks Room:
"There are still five days from today to the end of the month. During these five days, in addition to accepting my interview, you have another important matter to attend to, starting this afternoon."

"Ah?" Everyone looked up as if waking up from a dream.

"What is it?" asked Madeleine, half asleep. "Your Majesty, tell me as soon as possible. I am waiting for dinner."

………………

"Left, right, left! Left, right, left! Shout louder! Haven't you eaten?" Hakuto hit Archbishop Madeleine's butt hard with a stick while he was running, making him scream "Oh ho ho ho".

On the open space on the other side, the elders led by Thomas stood there sweating profusely, with a bowl of water on their heads and wood chips stuck between their arms and bodies.

Several elders even sat stiffly and upright on their chairs. If they moved, they would be beaten with thin sticks.

Standing on the second floor of the main hall, watching the training of the bishops and elders, Horn shook his head and muttered, "This is so-so. I hope it will be a little better after these five days of military training."

(End of this chapter)